December 31, 2012

G'Day!

Thanks so much for this week's e-mail, I loved hearing from you again! It was especially a huge blessing to be able to talk with you on Skype, it was wonderful to be able to see you again! Thanks especially for the Christmas presents as well as thanks to everyone else who sent something to me, it meant so much and made it a really wonderful Christmas day! This past week was really, really good and it flew by so fast, in large part because of the Holidays! On Monday we had a really nice Christmas Eve dinner with a family from the ward with some of their extended family as well. It was really good and we were so full afterwards! They gave us some nice treats to take back with us as well which was so generous of them! Christmas turned out really well as well (obviously mainly because I got to Skype with you!) and we were able to spend some time at 4 of the members' homes. We had some really delicious food and certainly didn't go hungry! It was nice to just have some time to enjoy with the members and relax just a bit on Christmas. It was also kind of nice that on Christmas morning it was actually a bit cold! So it helped make it feel a bit more like a Christmas in Utah instead of Australia haha. But obviously we couldn't rest for long because it was back to the regular work the next day! Despite it being the week of Christmas and a lot of people being really busy or out of town, we were still able to get a good amount of lessons in. It was really exciting this week because we were finally able to set a baptismal with Joan Willmott! We set it for the 9th of February so we really hope and pray she'll be ready on that day. That's the first time since I've been here in Pakenham that we've been able to set a date like that, so that was a huge blessing for us. We weren't able to see Rodney this past week, but we were told by his wife that he made it the whole month of December living the Word of Wisdom perfectly! That was a big miracle for us to see and it's been awesome to see how their whole family has been blessed from Rodney's commitment and determination. She said it's been pretty difficult for him but he's really put a lot of effort into staying strong which is so awesome to hear! We continue to pray that he'll be able to go another month as well keeping this commandment. Since we weren't able to see them this past week, we weren't able to try to set a date with Rodney, but we hope to be able to this coming Friday when we have an appointment with them! Well, the biggest miracle for us this week missionary-work wise was definitely the baptism of the Gloster children this past Saturday! It was such a wonderful day for them and for their family and the service went really well, with a lot of members attending to help support them. Jaynielee (age 10) and Mathew (age 12) were both baptized by Bishop and confirmed by him as well at church on Sunday. Erin Sky (age 9) said she wasn't ready to be baptized yet earlier in the week, so she didn't end up being baptized on the same day as the other 2 children, but she wants to wait to be baptized on her birthday which comes up on May 27th. So that will still be really good for her to be baptized and confirmed then! Mathew and his older brother Jack (age 14) also were both ordained as Deacons and received the Aaronic Priesthood at church yesterday as well! So it was just a really wonderful series of events for the Gloster family and it seems like they'll all do really well in the Pakenham ward. Brother Gloster also was at church for all 3 hours yesterday for the first time in a very long time, so that was really awesome to see as well. Another big miracle we witnessed was that David (Melissa's partner) came to church as well yesterday! After he'd told us that he wasn't going to come to church any more and we'd tried to help him see the importance of it, we certainly weren't expecting to see him there. So we look forward to when we see them this week and have the opportunity to ask him what prompted him to come this past Sunday. The whole week was really great and filled with lots of blessings and miracles, but unfortunately I don't have time to mention all of them! I really hope we're able to have a lot of success this coming week seeing as it's the last week of the transfer! We find out the news this coming Saturday of who's staying and who's going so we'll hope for good news! It will be an exciting transfer no matter what news though, since it will be the beginning of all the new missionaries coming in! So we'll work very hard this week and help Pakenham continue to grow. Thanks so much again for the e-mail, and especially for all of your love and support and prayers, it helps so much and I'm eternally grateful for all of it. I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead as well and a fantastic New Year! I love you!

Love,

Elder Hopkins